Kim has vowed to fire more missiles as pictures emerged of the despot cackling maniacally as he oversaw the launch described as “just a curtain-raiser”.

Just one day after his latest launch brought his country and American one step closer to war the smirking communist called for more weapons testing over the Pacific to advance his country’s ability to contain Guam.

State media reported that the dictator had said: “The current ballistic rocket launching drill like a real war is the first step of the military operation of the Korean People’s Army in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam.”

The Rodong Sinmun newspaper, mouthpiece of the North’s ruling party, on Wednesday carried more than 20 pictures of the launch near Pyongyang.

One showed Kim smiling broadly at a desk with a map of the Northwest Pacific, surrounded by aides.

North Korea today vowed to execute reporters from two South Korean newspapers, saying they insulted the country’s dignity while reviewing and interviewing the British authors of a book about life in the isolated country.

KCNA carried a state court statement expressing anger over the descriptions of North Korean lives as increasingly capitalist.

It also objected to the translated title of the South Korean edition as “Capitalist People’s Republic of Korea” and the book’s cover that replaced the red star in North Korea’s official seal with the US dollar mark.

North Korea’s Central Court also “sentenced to death” the presidents of the newspapers and said the North will “track down to the end and cut off the dirty windpipes” of those responsible for such provocations.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry denounced the North Korean comments as an “absurd threat” and said it “sternly warns” the North to immediately stop threating South Korean citizens.

Seoul’s government is ready to take “every measure needed” to protect its citizens, the ministry said in a statement.